Yep, it wasn't until the Hayden expedition when pictures and paintings by John Murie were brought back that people actually believed that a place like Yellowstone could exist. Very shortly afterwards the movement to preserve it came into being. President Grant signed the bill creating the first National Park in the whole world. That was in 1872. The Park Circus didn't come about until 1916. The Army ran the parks before then. They had to move the troops out in 1915 for world war 1.
